


Diamonds Are Forever

by abderian



Series: Forever Young Trilogy [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Future Niam, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 04:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/618032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abderian/pseuds/abderian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the beginning of the end. The first domino to fall. The seduction of an impossible dream, the cruelty of the celebrity sniper. Because youth is like diamonds in the sky, and Harry just wanted it to last forever.</p>
<p>Prequel to Forever Young and Sooner or Later</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diamonds Are Forever

xXx

Words can be cruel, you don’t even have to read them to let them strike you deep inside. Some magical construction of the alphabet can create doubt, a tiny rock that is placed under great pressure, the heat and stress of the human mind forming what is beautiful and tragic. Tears can slip down a face, tiny gemstones of ABC. Words was where it all started for Harry, simple print that mocked, and slowly he lost all meaning, what was the point of living if there was no cause to fight for. What was the point of growing old when he could remain forever young?

Twenty-one. He was an adult everywhere in the world, it should have been a time for celebration and yet Harry just felt empty. Because he had been an adult for years, what were numbers, they were like a piece of paper congratulating you for participation. He would stare at children wistfully, and then look at their parents in fear, fingers darting to his eyes, where tiny lines had already appeared, because he had been forced to grow up too fast.

Sometimes he wondered if he was too young when everything happened, and he couldn’t help the jealous spurs whenever he looked at Niall who remained ever youthful, while Harry slipped closer and closer to ancient. Ancient in mind and soul.

And it seemed that the media had picked up on his weariness, the constant barrage of attacks, suggesting they were too old to be a boy band, that they had expired. And they were only in their early twenties. Dreams assaulted him, visions of standing on stage, flecks of grey in his hair and his green eyes webbed with cataracts, his voice feeble, projecting across empty arenas, the others nothing but ghosts in the past, having bowed out long before they could fade away. But Harry could never let go, and his own dreams where suddenly what he was most afraid of. That he would never give up, and he would be forgotten, nothing but an empty voice tottering upon the wind.

The solution seemed so simple, yet so convoluted that Harry wondered if anything could ever be easy. Because perhaps the only way to win was to give up. It was all that felt right, constantly shying away from aging and loneliness, forever fearful he would fade away. He was always floating, the others didn’t really notice, as his voice rang out hollow and yet emotional during recordings, and his smile was bright but eyes dull as they sat in a whirlwind of promotion.

He needed to stay grounded, to stay present, and to stay young. Alcohol helped, but it left him just feeling more empty than before, with tears that burned dryly behind his eyes. It couldn’t create an illusion, it couldn’t make him feel like a child, he needed that fountain of youth. He needed more.

Unfortunately, more existed. And more was addictive.

He thought they were friends, he really did, taking him under their wing, promising they would take care of him. They saw his pain when his friends… no his family…. Louis, Niall, Liam, Zayn…. When they didn’t. And they knew how to make him better.

Small doses at first, they didn’t want him to get hurt. That’s what they told him. And Harry had laid there watching his hands, watching as the unwebbed and become whole, and happiness bubbled inside him because he was young, he didn’t feel old, he was looking at the world with a false youthful innocence, so naïve that he couldn’t see all of the slights on the world, and couldn’t feel the never ending pressure.

It became his cocktail, and he felt the disapproving eyes as he wandered into meeting his breath heavy and his steps stumbled.

The press was loving it, words of his alcoholism hit the stands, and they jeered and pointed, the words cutting his cheeks with stinging disdain.

But he didn’t care, as long as he had his fountain of youth, they could judge him, they could say whatever they wanted, because he was young once more, naïve and the insults went over his head, as long as he stayed high, beyond the reach of their ever tearing claws.

Eventually he must have pushed the bonds too far, and something had snapped, and he came crashing down to earth, panicked and frightened as his hands started to whither and his hair started to grey. Liam was looking at him sorrowfully, a hand on his arm, trying to make him see the light, to understand that it wasn’t healthy, that he was going to destroy himself and destroy One Direction.

That was the first time he lost control. Caught in the panic, and seeing Liam’s concerned eyes, silently stirring judgement hiding deep within the brown, and he saw Liam leaving him, leaving him to grow old and stand alone on that stage, the seats empty and the lack of sound crashing through his ears and drowning out his own voice with his tears.

The fist contacted with a resounding thud, and Harry spat on the floor. He didn’t have a problem, he wasn’t destroying anything. They were going to destroy him, he was only keeping himself whole, stopping himself from growing old, keeping himself young.

Besides, he comforted himself later, eyes closed yet open, watching as the world spun round, yet time stood still, they didn’t know. They didn’t know his struggles and they didn’t know his solution. They thought that he existed in a drunken stupor, but he was in a completely different plain.

But they found out, blue eyes found out. Both of them, yet neither of them, they saw him… but they didn’t see him.

Louis had been disgusted, his blue eyes burning with a fury, that showed he didn’t recognise his friend, because whoever he was watching, it was a stranger. It wasn’t the person he had started this journey with, and he wasn’t someone he wanted to finish this journey with. He was a stranger, no more than somebody he would brush past in the street wearing a twisted mask of somebody he used to know.

But Niall, his eyes, they were just blue. They were caught in some storm, the point between black and white, blue but leeched, as though they had been drained of life. They were grey, they were old, and suddenly Harry felt ill, watching as Niall’s face ran bloodless, Louis arm across his chest, always protecting him, even when Niall didn’t need protection. But Harry couldn’t stand it, he could handle Louis, judging him, not recognising him, hating him. He couldn’t handle Niall, his eyes scared and unsure, refusing to believe what he was seeing. Because to Niall, they were all perfect, he placed each and everyone of them up on this pedestal, made of the most fragile and beautiful crystal, and it was Niall who repaired and cracks, made sure they never fell, because he would be the one to catch them and send them straight back up. And now it was Niall who stared at him, for once lost as he clutched at the broken shards, Harry too far down for him to reach and pull back up.

Because Niall didn’t need protection, he was their protector. He didn’t need protection, until it was them pulling the trigger, because he would blame himself, because he should have known earlier, he should have done more. That was when Niall needed protection, he needed protection from them, because they knew his chinks and they knew how to destroy him, and as Niall crumpled into Louis chest, Harry just lay frozen, hating himself as time began to speed up.

He tried to stay away, tried to clean himself up, but he couldn’t. He needed it. His fountain of youth was a diamond, glinting in the sun, so beautiful and waiting for him, untold riches that just needed to be picked up.

An intervention, that’s what they had called it. He hadn’t needed it. He lashed out again, frustrated and angry, he didn’t need rehabilitation. He was fine. He was young.

Because being young was all that matters, he never wanted to grow old, because every day, every second, was his dreams slipping by him, and what point was there in growing old, if when he got there he had nothing left worth living for.

Youth was a diamond, unbreakable, yet fragile and beautiful. He felt it coursing in his veins, tingling across his skin. His heart raced and his breath caught, because it was racing, racing so hard trying to go backwards, trying to be young, trying to stop nature and time, and freeze him for all eternity….

And it succeeded.

Blackness caught in his eyes, and he was blind, the metallic tang of blood coating his lips, as his final breath slipped out, holding with it the power of eternal youth, kissing his cheeks. Because he was a diamond, forever caught in his beautiful infinity.

It’s hard to get old without a cause,

I don’t want to perish like a fading horse,

Youth is like diamonds in the sun,

And diamonds are forever.

It was Niall who found him, fingers gently woven with the cold corpse, just sitting there, staring, scared. It was dark, and even Niall could not provide a candlelight, as he sat their questioning, a syringe caught loosely in his fingers, as he just stared at it. Why?

It shattered, the deathly cocktail soaking into Niall’s jeans, glass pieces slicing against Harry’s grey face. And Niall couldn’t move, he couldn’t call out, because he had done nothing, he could have done more, he should have stopped Harry, stopped him before he fell beyond his reach, into the bottomless chasm, where the cold never ends.

Eventually the others found him, and they said nothing, they couldn’t say anything. Because they were broken too, cracks across their perfect crystal, and without Niall, because he was in shock, there was nothing to stop their fall. Because they were their own worst enemy.

The pain didn’t last forever, just a long time, and they were caught in that limbo, waiting for those final breaks, waiting for the superman they knew wasn’t coming. Until finally Niall woke up, tears slipping down his face, tiny diamonds caught in the sunlight, and he lifted them back up, the glue fragile but strong, his own links to everything strained, yet he was aware. Aware of what they were missing, and aware of how much he would never leave.

So many adventures couldn’t happen today,

So many songs we forgot to play,

So many dreams swinging out of the blue,

We’ll let ‘em come true.

 

Forever young,

I wanna be,

Forever young,

Do you really want to live forever,

Forever,

Or never?


End file.
